The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, September 2, 1918, Page 6

Tonpartisén feader Entered as second-class matter September 8, 1915, at the postoffice at St. Paul, Minnesota, under the Act of March 8, 1879, OLIVER 8. MORRIS, Editor : PAUL GREER, Associate Editor B. 0. FO8S, Art Editor : Advertising rates on application. Subscription, one year, in advance, $2.50; six months, $1.50. Please do not make checks, drafts nor money orders payable to indi- viduals. Address all letters and make all remittances to The Nonpartisan Leader, Box 576, St. Paul, Minn. MEMBER OF AUDIT BUREAU OF CIRCULATIONS THE 8. C. BECKWITH SPECIAL AGENCY, Advertising Representatives, New * York, Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit, Kansas City. Quack, fraudulent and irresponsible firms are not knowingly advertised, and we will take it as a favor if any readers will advise us promptly should they have occasion to doubt or quesfion the reliability of any firm which patronizes our advertising columns, EDITORIALS GIVING NEWSPAPERS WHAT THEY WANT HE pulp and paper section of the war industries board has I made a recent ruling with the alleged object of conserving print paper. The idea is that if newspapers use less print paper, less coal will have to be used by paper mills, and coal is scarce and a war necessity. With the plan to save codl by cutting down news print every one will be in hearty sympathy. But— The war industries board ALLOWED THE NEWSPAPERS THEMSELVES TO MAKE THE RULES. Naturally, therefore, these rules favor the newspapers and cheat the public. Naturally, also, you will not see any protests in the newspapers about the rules, although the newspapers have kicked pretty strenuously in the past about other government war orders. First of all, the newspapers caused a rule to be made prohibit- ing the starting of any new newspapers. This lays competition low in a field where competition ‘is needed more than anywhere else. Existing newspapers are being gobbled up by Wall street in- terests. The recent purchase of the New York Evening Post by a member of the firm of J.-P. Morgan & Co. is an instance. Right now a great move for a free press is sweeping the country. The : labor unions of Seattle, Wash., have just started a daily paper. .~ ~~The labor unions of Butte expect to start a daily paper within a few weeks. The organized farmers and their friends of Grand Forks county, North Dakota, after a year’s promotion work, are about to start a new independent daily paper to escape from the kept press. Elsewhere new papers are planned or actually started to compete with the corporation press, which is poisoning the avenues of information in the United States. It is a quite a stroke if the existing newspapers will be able, by a war order, to put a stop to this movement to free the press. Paper could be conserved without giving existing newspapers a monoply. * But this is not all. The order of the war board purports to cut down the size of newspapers and thus save paper. BUT THE ORDER CUTS DOWN READING MATTER ONLY, NOT ADVER- TISING. The revenue of the publishers will not be interferred with, but the subscribers will get less reading matter—less_news for their money. If this was an honest effort to save paper, it would cut down ADVERTISING MATTER AS WELL AS READING MATTER,. : THOSE FARMER PROFITEERS ; RECENT article in the New York Times, foe of the organized farmers and of all progress, brands farmers as tax dodgers and profiteers. Says the Times: : : Wheat at $3, perhaps; pork on the hoof at 19 cents the pound spot cash, and all the agricultural papers printing pictures of parked auto- mobiles outside of Grange conventions. Signs of bucolic prosperity, these. Well, is he prosperous, and does the son of the glebe pay his income taxes as closely as do business and professional men? 1Is he likely to give of his excess profits for the national war chest? The idea seems to gain ground every day that farmers are a favored class compared to some of the rest of us as far as their obligations to-the .federal treasury are concerned. y : All this is just a silly propaganda of the big interests to detract | endeavoring to curb the big moncpolies of the country—the pack- { ers, for instance. To offset the federal trade commission exposure of the packing trust, something had to be done. So why not try to make out that farmers are profiteers and tax dodgers? - AS THEY PRINT IT. , s & SOUTH DAKOTA League farmer named Eastman has a son in the army about to go to France. A stranger stopped at the Eastman farm recently and remarked that he hoped that . stranger, knocking him out. It wor d have been better to ha | SFrresg " - - reactionary Democratic voters attention from the real profiteers and discredit the people who are “under fire for voting against war, is an instance. Thi “He is credited with more Liberty bonds than his ‘would seem to warrant. His daughter is active in Y. W. C. A war - work, His wife is a leader in Red Cross work. He voted for ever e ;%?_s e ~ German U-boats would torpedo the next American troop transport - left for Europe. ‘Farmer Eastman “"};mediately sluggedtft&g' ? him arrested. Nevertheless Eastman, who had visions of his own son being torpedoed on a transport, hit the stranger and then went in to Sioux Falls and reported to the authorities what he had done and why he did it. - e i " The Sioux Falls Argus-Leader, a-hate organ that is fightin the Nonpartisan league, reported the incident. It stated that THE STRANGER WAS A LEAGUE ORGANIZER AND DID NOT . MENTION THAT EASTMAN WAS A LEAGUE FARMER. Sev- eral other League farmers immediately called on Eastman. He de- clared the man he'had hit was not a League organizer and. that the League had not been mentioned in the conversation with the stranger. With other League members he called on the editor of the Sioux Falls Argus-Leader and requested that a correction be made of the damnably false report. - ' The Argus-Leader has to date failed to retract the lie. It - will probably be copied all over the United States by anti-farmer s | papers. ‘ : R e MR. ROME G. BROWN e T "R. ROME G. BROWN of Minneapolis made a speech before M the Jowa Bar association, in which he called the Nonparti- I8 san league a “menace” and which formed the subject of a S leading editorial in a recent issue of Leslie’s Weekly. He said the 3 League was working “secretly” to “capture Montana and other western states.” “Secretly” is good. o r. Brown is a corporation lawyer who specializes in work for gl s the big waterpower interests. He was chairman of the committee S of the American Bar association formed to fight against laws pro- ) viding for the recall of judges. He was one of the organizers of the National Citizens’ union, a secret society with.a lodge ritual, & | formed to oppose liberal and democratic men, measures and organ- ( izations. Together with F. H. Carpenter, millionaire lumberman q and Republican party boss, Mr. Brown held negotiations with W. E. oL § Quigley, a League employe, with the idea of having Quigley “expose 8 the League from the inside.” Instead of “exposing” the League, B 1 Quigley exposed Mr. Brown. Mr. Brown is the man to whom Sena- Ry or Nelson wrote to get information as to how the waterpower B trust felt about certain waterpower legislation in congress, which ; Nelson desired to oppose if Mr. Brown thought it advisable. Mr. Brown had made a speech before the Iowa Bar asso- ciation approving the League, it would be time for the farmers to find some new organization to jrotect their interests. : THE NATIONAL SECUR(TY LEAGUE A HEN, early in the war, the Nonpartisan Leader branded i the-National Security league as a cheap attempt to use i & patriotism to discredit democracy and liberalism in Amer- ; ica, we were called “pro-German.” It was said we attacked a “pa- . -3 triotic activity.” The National Security league is now frankly out in the field as a political organization. A recent circular letter of this “patriotic” body states that it is making “a country-wide effort to return to congress men of eminent ability and undoubted loyal- . M ty.” The letter appeals to business men for money to help in this s “patriotic” political work. “The advantages to the business intet- 4 ests of the country of such representation in econgress arc :-lf- evident,” says the letter. X ey Alton B. Parker, reactionary Democrat and one-time big busi-- ness candidate for president, is-an officer of the Security league. . 5 Elihu Root is president. Root is an eminent gentleman who has A devoted a lifetime ‘to fighting democracy in America and trying < g to head off all liberal tendencies of the people. Would men of 9 & “eminent ability” and “undoubted loyalty,” according to the » standards of Messrs. Root and Parker, suit you? The Security B league is a stupid camouflage for big business. It is one of the . sinister organizations trying to use the war to lay low progressive men and measures. - FARMERS’ CANDIDATES UNOPPOSED - T * N TWO congressional districts of North Dakota, the candidates - e nominated on the Republican ticket for congress by the Non-- partisan league at the primaries will be unopposed at the fall - election. . The Democratic candidates at the primaries: failed to poll 25 per cent of the vote cast for the Democratic candidate for governor at the last election, and hence, under the law, will not. go on the ballot. As in Minnesota, the Democratic bosses herded the A into the Republican party primary ; to beat the League candidates. In North Dakota they failed to B beat the League-indorsed Republican candidates by this trick, and =i, their failure to vote in their own party has eliminated their candi- dates from the field in the fall election, leaving the farmers’ candi- dates unopposed. The road of the political trickster: is sometimes e rough in places. : : VOTING AGAINST WAR against war-with Germany in most cases is too silly even to be discussed: One of the congressmen from Wisconsin, now : THE charge of “disloyalty” against congressmen who veted is congressman 18 in the navy. ' circumstances has a son on the battlefront in France. Another son ure since the declaration of war. ; e , then, is this congressman’s crime? Baek i1